#97---CHA @ TOR, 6/28/2014

After finally taking the plunge to track the score of the game in-progress, I applied the same basic approach to tracking all of the summary statistics. Previously I displayed these for each inning as R-H-W-LOB; to save space I now smashed them all together, so that 1201 was 1 run, 2 hits, 0 walks, 1 left. If the running total changed from the previous inning (i.e. if the line for the inning was anything other than 0000), then the new total was listed to the right, as you can see for the Blue Jays’ second. If the values ever cease being single digits (which did not happen in this game, but often do; obviously 10+ hits in a game is not a particularly rare event), then I break it into two lines, with runs and hits on top, walks and LOB on the bottom. The final tally for the game, from whatever inning it was reached, is boxed in at the end of the game.

Early in this game, only the totals in Toronto’s boxes were doing much changing, thanks to a 2-run fifth inning homer by Darrin Mastroianni (these were not your 2015 Blue Jays, as the lineup presence of Glenn and Tolleson also suggest). Marcus Stroman was pitching great into the seventh, recording the first two outs before surrendering a double to would-be Rookie of the Year Jose Abreu and walking Adam Dunn (one of my favorites who had a great game in this his final season, singling, doubling, and drawing two walks, yet also inexplicably getting caught stealing to end the fifth--the only time he was caught this season, and one of just two attempts). Dustin McGowan was summoned, and promptly served up the lead as Dayan Viciedo hit a three-run bomb. In the eighth, McGowan had his own two-out trouble, with Adam Eaton singling to first base and Gordon Beckham following with a single. Aaron Loup surrendered a single to Connor Gillaspie and the White Sox had a 4-2 lead. Toronto quickly scored with a double and single to start the ninth, but could do nothing more.

#96---PHI @ CIN, 4/15/2013

One thing that I have always had trouble keeping in mind about scorekeeping is that “score” is prominently included in the name. I have always been so focused on recording the minutia of the play on the field that the score of the game has often been afterthought. Of course, part of recording the play on the field is marking when runs are scored, and I have never had any trouble doing that. However, I have often eschewed any sort of summary of the game in progress. Some of the earliest examples with the scoresheet I’ve basically been using since 1998 don’t even include the final score of the game. I knew it at the time, and figured that if I were ever interested in revisiting it, I could just tally up the runs then.

Eventually I made a point of recording the final score of each game (which also made it easy to spot scoresheets that showed the first nine innings of an extra-inning affair, since they had no final score), but it wasn’t until 2013 that I bothered to record a running tally of the score as the game progresses, which you can see in this example. The 2, enclosed with a box, at the end of the Reds’ seventh inning line indicates their total score at this point was 2. When they added another pair in the eighth, this became a 4. I only recorded this running score if it changed, which cuts down on excess writing but sometimes requires a look back through the previous inning summaries.

This was a good game; through 6.5 innings both Bronson Arroyo and Cliff Lee had three-hit their opponents. But in the Cincinnati seventh Votto singled, Phillips doubled, Votto scored on a wild pitch that also moved Phillips to third, Bruce walked, and Frazier hit a sac fly. But Philadelphia would tie it on Chase Utley’s two-out, two-run pinch hit homer in the eighth. But Jerry Horst allowed two hits, then intentionally walked Joey Votto as Mike Adams was summoned with only one out. Brandon Phillips singled in two runs on a 1-2 pitch, and Aroldis Chapman mowed down the Phillies in the ninth. The final was 4-2, and you could actually finally follow the progress towards it on my scoresheet.

Note Chris Heisey's 7th inning PA, in which he reached on a throwing error by the pitcher. The "-->2" under the "TE1" indicates that the errant throw was directed to second base. Otherwise, in lieu of any notation, it would be assumed to have been made in an attempt to retire Heisey, the batter-runner.

#95---KC @ LAA, 4/6/2012

This was the last game I watched during an opening day binge in 2012, and it was a simpler time. The Royals lineup has many names that were familiar during the 2014-2015 dystopian postseasons, but they weren’t very good yet and Bruce Chen was their opening day starter. Well, the latter may be different from the current reality in name only. Their opponent was the Angels, sans Mike Trout, who would not be recalled until later in the spring. But Jered Weaver cruised, giving up four hits, no walks, fanning ten, and making just 97 pitches over eight shutout innings. KC kept it close until the first four Angels singled in the eighth and Erick Aybar hit a bases-clearing triple. This was also Albert Pujols’ first game for LAA, lining into a DP, popping up, fanning, and being intentionally walked.

It doesn’t look as if any new notations showed up in my scoresheet. However, Betancourt's at-bat in the seventh featured a rate play for which you can see my scoring. He fouled off the sixth pitch, and noted fielding whiz Mark Trumbo muffed in foul territory. I note this by bracketing [CE5] after the regular notation ("F") for that foul ball (F because it was the sixth pitch). There's no need to note that the error occurred in foul territory because the context makes it clear.

#94---CHA @ CLE, 4/2/2011

This was the second game of the 2011 season for the two teams, which is most interesting to me because Carlos Carrasco got the start for the Indians. Carrasco would of course not really emerge as a good major league starter until late in the season in 2014 (or 2015 if you prefer a full-season performance to make that determination), but the Tribe’s rotation to open 2011 was Fausto Carmona, Carrasco, Justin Masterson (who would emerge as the #1 starter), Josh Tomlin (still a candidate for the rotation in 2016), and Mitch Talbot. Carrasco, surrended five runs in the first two frames then settled in, but was somewhat surprisingly sent out to work the seventh after allowing a sixth run in the sixth.

You also might note the presence of Chris Sale, then working out of the ChiSox pen, mowing down all five Indians he faced, including Ks of lefties Shin-Soo Choo and Travis Hafner. Orlando Cabrera was batting sixth at second base and also fanned.

Looking at the scoresheet I don’t see any new notations or flourishes jumping out, but sometimes I add those as the season goes on and of course minor ones don’t necessarily manifest in each game.

#93---TEX @ SEA, 3/17/2010

The scoresheet used here is one that I use for Spring Training games almost exclusively. The diagram of the field allows for a convenient way to record defensive replacements even when you’re not exactly sure where they will be placed in the lineup. In my early scorekeeping days I assumed all substitutions were straight-up, and erased as necessary later. Some managers seemed to make it their personal mission to thwart scorekeepers using that approach by never batting their new third baseman where their departing third basemen hit.

Then I moved on to keeping a separate piece of paper to write down defensive changes, then entering the players into the lineup as they came to the plate. This is a good system, although it involves another piece of paper, and one I still use for the All-Star Game. But if I’m not keeping a pitch-by-pitch record of the game (and even a nut like I usually don’t for spring training), the diagram is handy.

The other different thing about this scoresheet is that in this case, since the scoreboxes are much smaller than I’m accustomed to, I used a hit location scoring system inspired by LL Bean’s scoring system to save space. Thus Julio Borbon’s leadoff single was a flyball single to left; Nelson Cruz’ second inning single a groundball single to center; and Vladimir Guerrero’s fifth inning single a line drive to left.

This must have been one of the last times I watched my first (and fairly brief) childhood baseball idol play. Ken Griffey grounded to first, popped to third, flew to center, and struck out. I was right to dump him for Barry Bonds by late 1995.

#92---CLE @ MIN, 6/4/2009

It has been over five years since I have posted a scoresheet here. A lot has changed in the last five years; most notably in this context, I have less idle time to sit around and scan/upload/write about old scoresheets. But what has not changed is my obsession, my compulsion with keeping score of every game that I sit down to take in, be it in person or on TV or even on the radio (and sometimes, in desperate and sad situations, on internet gametrackers). And so as I thought excitedly about the prospect of watching and scoring the South Africa/Australia WBC qualifier final tonight, on a day with single digit temperatures and a blanket of snow outside, I decided to bring back Weekly Scoresheet.

I may have less free time than I did when I posted scoresheets weekly, but what I really did not have for the last five years was a scanner. Why an adult man with a perfectly decent income could not be bothered for five years to buy a scanner or even a printer is a matter best left unexplored, but I now have such a device, and so I no longer have any excuses. While every 267 weeks does not fit the weekly of the blog's title, I will endeavor to make the frequency of posting at least a little more than every 267 weeks.

Of course, this blog is by definition a vanity project. It has never had a non-negligible number of readers, nor should it. Another person's scoresheets may be interesting for a few examples, gleaning a few different ideas or gawking at terrible handwriting. Were they for the pre-Project Scoresheet era, they may have analytical value; fortunately, my entire life has a baseball fan has been lived in an era in which play-by-play accounts of major league games are preserved as a matter of course. So this blog has no function other than to allow me to reminisce about my own baseball viewing experiences, and that's enough reason for me to maintain it.

The game here is an eminently forgettable game from 2009, but my general pattern for this site is to post one scoresheet from each season of my time keeping score, then go back to the beginning. With a multi-year absence, I'll pick it up again in 2009. I also try to make note of any changes I've made to my personal scorekeeping style for each year, although at this point my memory of what I might have changed six years ago is more than a little hazy. In looking back at the blog archives, it looks like the last wholesale change I made was in 2010, and I have already documented it on this blog .

This Indians/Twins tilt was literally on top of the 2009 Scoresheets folder in my file cabinet. Minnesota battered Fausto Carmona for seven runs over the first two frames, punctuated by a pair of three-run homers from Jason Kubel. Joe Mauer also had a fine Mauer-type game in his MVP season, drawing a walk, hitting three singles, and scoring four runs. Scott Baker no-hit the Tribe through 4 1/3 before Mark DeRosa doubled; later Chris Gimenez would homer to center of Baker in the 7th inning on a 0-1 pitch for his first major league hit.

#91---CIN @ CLE, 3/24/2002

There's nothing like the scoresheet from a run-of-the-mill exhibition game to cheer one up on a dark, snowy winter day. I certainly hope the Reds were playing a split squad, because that lineup is putrid.

#90---NYA @ NYN, 6/17/2001

This Yankees/Mets game serves as a good illustration for why I prefer scoresheets that don't allocate space to statistical summaries--I rarely ever fill them in.

If you overlook 3-4-5, this Met lineup is pretty ghastly. Benny Agbayani was a fun player, but Desi Relaford, Rey Ordonez...Joe McEwing in *right field*? Not good, but they exploded for six in the bottom of the eighth to turn a 7-2 deficit into an 8-7 win in a rematch of the previous season's World Series.

#89---CLE @ BAL, 4/5/2000

This was the second game of the season for the Indians and the Orioles in 2000. Charlie Manuel, in his first year as skipper, was tossed for arguing balls and strikes in the third inning. His frustration would have been understandable as this game was a preview of things to come with the 2000 Tribe. A five-run second, including two bases loaded walks, was not enough. Chuck Finley gave up four runs in five innings in his Cleveland debut, and Steve Reed gave up a three-run homer to Charles Johnson in relief. Johnson homered again off Scott Kamienicki in the eighth, and it was so bad that Bobby Witt came into get the last out. Things would only get worse as the season progressed.

#88---Home Run Derby, 7/13/1999

I only scored two home run derbies, honest. I posted the 1998 one a couple years ago, and figured I'd get the embarrassment out of the way now by posting the second, so that my heirs who continue this blog won't be sitting around in 2089 posting home run derby scoresheets.